The honeymoon period has ended and now the political reality of Washington beings in earnest

In many ways the United States has seen the strangest honeymoon period for a new President in history. Since his election victory on November 8th and the rocky and controversial start to his presidency #Donald Trump has not only had to face record low levels of popularity for an incoming presidency but also challenges to orders and proposals. Last week effectively saw an early end to his #Honeymoon Period and this week the true lessons of political reality Washington style begin.

House Committee

The controversies surrounding the Trump Administration began during the election campaign with the allegations of Russian interference in the election in favour of the winning candidate.

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These allegations have been under investigation for months, they saw the resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and led to the decision by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from the investigations due to his role in the Trump election campaign. The next step will occur today.

FBI Director James Comey will today face the House Intelligence Committee in regards to the investigations and also to answer questions under oath of President Trump’s accusations that the Obama Administration ordered wiretapping of Trump Tower during the election campaign.

Reports this weekend that the Justice Department supplied no proof of these allegations will mean the Comey and President Trump face a difficult week with the fallout from the questioning probably dominating the news bulletins for the rest of the week.

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Promises

This week will also see the battles continue over the repeal of the ACA and the proposed budget presented last week. Together with the insistence of the President that work on the border wall with Mexico begins as soon as possible the true art of politics will begin in the Senate and Congress today.

These are all matters that formed a major part of the President’s election campaign and which he considers untouchable. This belief has already been challenged successfully in the courts and now faces the true political test in the Legislative branch.

Since the Republican politicians did not themselves make these promises many of them have already stated that they hold grave reservations about many aspects of these orders. Some of the politicians consider them too extreme and others consider them not extreme enough.

#The Oval Office faces a battle for their approval which will test the strength of the bonds that hold together the unsteady alliance between the White House and the Party which #Donald Trumpostensibly represents.

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This week on the Capitol the Republican Party will be tested in the public eye and the stake at play will be next year’s midterms.

Fallout

The foreign stage will also play an important part of this week at the White House. The comments regarding an alleged role of British intelligence in the accusations of wiretapping of the White House are still being felt in London.

After the indignant British reaction to the accusation National Security Advisory General H. R. McMaster and Press Secretary Sean Spicer have reportedly offered apologies for the comments by Spicer in repeating reports from Fox News but many in Britain consider them insufficient.

Donald Trump is notoriously reticent in recognizing and apologising for mistakes and for this reason many in Washington are waiting to see how the President will calm the nerves of the country’s oldest and closest ally.

At the same time the Oval Office will have another tough foreign policy task in the light of Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson’s visit to Asia last week in finding a means of checking the inflammatory behaviour of North Korea without causing further diplomatic differences with China.

These challenges are made worse by the still incomplete Administration and the Oval Office must give priority to completing its staff so all these and the other matters on the President’s desk will be resolved as soon as possible.

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